National plan to combat cybercrime

Australia is a highly connected country - technology and the internet are crucial to Australia\u27s way of life. However, while the potential of the internet and digital economy is clearly a massive opportunity for Australia, it is also quickly emerging as a key enabler for criminal activity. In Australia, the term \u27cybercrime\u27 is used to describe both: crimes directed at computers or other information communications technologies (ICTs) (such as hacking and denial of service attacks) and crimes where computers or ICTs are an integral part of an offence (such as online fraud, identity theft and the distribution of child exploitation material). Responsibility for combating the different forms of cybercrime in Australia is shared between Australian Government agencies state and territory agencies. All jurisdictions have criminal laws directed at the various forms of cybercrime. The Australian Attorney-General\u27s Department has led the development of a National Plan to Combat Cybercrime, in consultation with Australian Government agencies, state and territory agencies

Underground web: the cybercrime challenge

The two papers in this Special Report examine the central role that cybercrime plays in modern society and how technological developments create new opportunities for criminals to exploit. Overview Calum Jeffray’s paper, Caught in the net: the law enforcement response to international cybercrime, surveys the strategic cybercrime landscape and illustrates that, despite calls for law enforcement to ‘do more’ to prevent and investigate cybercrime, the agencies involved are often hampered in acting due to jurisdictional issues or the complexity of the investigations. Tobias Feakin’s paper, Cryptomarkets—illicit goods in the darknet, examines the emergence of the ‘darknet’, where trading in illicit goods and services in online black markets has become increasingly commonplace and exacerbates the problems that law enforcement already faces—tracing and prosecuting illegal activities online. This Special Report includes a foreword by Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin

Measuring digital crime investigation capacity to guide international crime prevention strategies

This work proposes a method for the measurement of a country's digital investigation capacity and saturation for the assessment of future capacity expansion. The focus is on external, or international, partners being a factor that could negatively affect the return on investment when attempting to expand investigation capacity nationally. This work concludes with the argument that when dealing with digital crime, target international partners should be a consideration in expansion, and could potentially be a bottleneck of investigation requests.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Presented at FutureTech 201

A shared agenda for the Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, South Korea, 2013

This briefing is ASPI’s distillation of the thoughts of a group of prominent members of the Australian cybersecurity community. We held a workshop in Canberra on the key panel sessions that will take place at the Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, South Korea, in October 2013. Workshop participants included the Australian Government departments with a stake in cyber issues and members of the private sector, including the banking and IT sectors, defence and security industries and representatives from the wider business community. The aim of the workshop was to provide creative Australian perspectives to take to the Seoul conference

Cyber maturity in the Asia-Pacific Region 2014

Summary: To make considered, evidence-based cyber policy judgements in the Asia-Pacific there’s a need for better tools to assess the existing ‘cyber maturity’ of nations in the region. Over the past twelve months the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre has developed a Maturity Metric which provides an assessment of the regional cyber landscape. This measurement encompasses an evaluation of whole-of-government policy and legislative structures, military organisation, business and digital economic strength and levels of cyber social awareness. This information is distilled into an accessible format, using metrics to provide a snapshot by which government, business, and the public alike can garner an understanding of the cyber profile of regional actors

Exploring the cybercrime capacity and capability of local law enforcement agencies in the United States

2021 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.The relentless pace of technological innovation has changed how people communicate, interact, and conduct business, creating new pathways and opportunities for people to commit crimes or engage in harmful behavior via the internet or digitally networked devices. Cybercrime is rapidly scaling up, leading many to predict that it will become the next significant global crisis (Krebs, 2021; Viswanathan & Volz, 2021; Zakaria, 2021). In the United States, local law enforcement agencies and their personnel stand at the frontlines of the cybercrime problem (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). This dissertation project was inspired by several calls to action to explore and evaluate how law enforcement agencies are responding to the cybercrime problem (Holt & Bossler, 2014; Ngo & Jaishankar, 2017). The research conducted in this project aligns with and extends a small body of exploratory and evaluative research focusing on local law enforcement agencies and cybercrime (for example Harkin et al., 2018; Monaghan, 2020; Nowacki & Willits, 2016). By utilizing a mixed methods research design consisting of a survey and series of qualitative interviews this project helped address the research question: What is the current cybercrime capacity and capability of local law enforcement agencies in the United States? Findings from this project advance our knowledge about the cybercrime capacity and capability of local law enforcement agencies and contribute to strengthening law enforcement practice, policy, and future research. In total, 925 county and municipal agencies participated in this research project through a survey instrument called the Cybercrime Capacity and Capability Questionnaire (CCCQ©), with 855 agencies providing data usable for analysis. Additionally, 23 individuals representing 23 distinct agencies, who previously participated in the CCCQ, also participated in a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews. Multiple findings and recommendations were derived as a result of the participation by these agencies and individuals in this project. Several findings from this project aligned with or validated findings and recommendations from other recent studies (for example Harkin et al., 2018). Among the key findings from this project are that the cybercrime capacity and capability of local law enforcement agencies is deficient, despite trends at the local law enforcement agency level to allocate more resources to the cybercrime problem. This deficiency is noted both by response patterns on the CCCQ© and through comments supplied during the qualitative interviews. Lack of financial and personnel resources, especially technologically skilled and competent personnel, limited and/or outdated technological infrastructure, and problems leveraging partnerships and obtaining cooperation from private sector organizations are just a few of the challenges hampering the development of a more robust local law enforcement cybercrime capacity and capability. Results and insights from this research also illuminate the dynamic process of developing cybercrime capacity and capability. Result from this project indicate that caution should be exercised before assuming that cybercrime capacity and capability are solely a function of agency size. While this project substantiates other research that shows larger agencies are more likely to have cybercrime units, and also tend to have more resources, personnel, and equipment for cybercrime investigations, they do not necessarily have greater cybercrime capacity or capability. Cybercrime case volume appears to impact cybercrime capacity and capability such that large local law enforcement agencies, despite specialized cybercrime units and more resources allocated to cybercrime, may not be better off in managing cybercrime incidents or responding to cybercrime related issues than midsize and smaller local agencies. Personnel at larger agencies, despite having dedicated cybercrime units, more resources, and better equipment, may be at higher risk of burnout and other issues as a result. In short, extremely high cybercrime case volumes may undermine the capacity and capability of even the most robustly developed specialized cybercrime units, as well as the best equipped and resourced agencies. Given the pace at which the cybercrime problem is growing, this is a troubling finding. This project also highlights that cybercrime capacity and capability cannot be understood without accounting for the critical differences that external forces and contextual factors produce on local law enforcement agencies that, in turn, impact how those agencies function and adapt to new issues and challenges. For example, qualitative data from this project help us to understand the connections between the defund the police movement and the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which appear to be undermining the capacity and capability of local law enforcement agencies, and thus negatively impacting their cybercrime capacity and capability. As a result, cybercrime administrators and personnel at local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. may be experiencing similar challenges to their peers abroad (see Harkin et al. 2018). A number of directions for future research, improvement of the CCCQ©, and recommendations for improving police practice and policy such as developing uniform, and operationalizable cybercrime best practices and strengthening private sector compliance with law enforcement agency requests for data are also provided

A return on investment: the future of police cooperation between Australia and Indonesia

This Special Report presents a strategy for the future relationship between Indonesia’s National Police—known as POLRI—and the Australian Federal Police (AFP). It draws on 60 interviews with current and retired police officers, officials from other Australian and Indonesian agencies, and academic experts in related fields. The report presents a strategy for the future POLRI–AFP relationship in two parts. The first paperexamines the near term to early 2015. POLRI and the AFP should first aim to restore full trust and cooperation in all relevant policing areas, especially in cybercrime. Early initiatives could include a 10‑year celebration for the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation, workshops for future AFP and POLRI leaders, and a request for POLRI officers to support the AFP during the G20 meeting in November 2014. It would also be worth sponsoring an international ‘needs analysis’ for POLRI. Reinstating funding for the Law Enforcement Cooperation Program is needed to promote the AFP’s flexibility and responsiveness during this time. The second paper provides background, tracing the remarkable relationship between the Australian Federal Police and the Indonesian National Police from its early days, where the focus was on information sharing, through a journey into joint operations. The paper describes the numerous capability cooperation initiatives that the forces have undertaken, especially since 2002, and charts both successes and times where cooperation didn’t necessarily deliver as intended